Thoughts on politics, philosophy and economics

Issues with Socialist Anarchism

According to the Oxford online dictionary, Anarchism entails the abolition of all government and the subsequent organisation of society on a purely voluntary basis[1]. Noam Chomsky is perhaps the best known public advocate of Anarchism, specifically its left-wing variety which is anti-capitalist[2]. However, in an interview with Reddit Blog Chomsky has stated his diffidence towards the abolition of the state as an objective. More than that, he goes on to say that in the short-term the United States should do “what the large majority of the population has wanted for decades… to develop a sensible national health-care system of the kind that every other industrial country has”[3], in other words expand the state. The trouble with Socialist Anarchism, as illustrated here, is that its goals call for the expansion of state power. How else is ‘exploitative’ private property to be abolished without the use of coercion? It is certainly possible for small cooperatives to do so peacefully, but all of civilisation?